French colonial documentary : mythologies of humanitarianism / Peter J. Bloom.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bloom, Peter J.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Documentary films--France--History and criticism.

Documentary films.

Colonies.

History.

France--Colonies--History--20th century.

France.

Physical Description:

xiii, 265 pages : illustrations, maps ; 27 cm

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, [2008]

Summary:

Despite altruistic goals, humanitarianism often propagates foreign, and sometimes unjust, power structures where it is employed. Tracing the visual rhetoric of French colonial humanitarianism, Peter J. Bloom's unexpected analysis reveals how the project of remaking the colonies in the image of France was integral to its national identity. French Colonial Documentary investigates how the promise of universal citizenship rights in France was projected onto the colonies as a form of evolutionary interventionism. Bloom focuses on the promotion of French education efforts, hygienic reform, and new agricultural techniques in the colonies as a means of renegotiating the social contract between citizens and the state on an international scale. Bloom's insightful readings disclose the pervasiveness of colonial iconography, including the relationship between "natural man" and colonial subjectivity; representations of the Senegalese Sharpshooters as obedient, brave, and sexualized colonial subjects; and the appeal of exotic adventure narratives in the trans-Saharan film genre. Examining the interconnection between French documentary realism and the colonial enterprise, Bloom demonstrates how the colonial archive is crucial to contemporary debates about multiculturalism in France.

Contents:

Introduction: French Colonial Documentary VII

1 Tupi or Not Tupi: Natural Man and the Ideology of French Colonial Documentary 1

2 Mythologies of the Tirailleurs Senegalais: Cinema, Shell Shock, and French Colonial Psychiatry 35

3 The Trans-Saharan Crossing Films: Colonial Cinematic Projections of the French Automobile 65

4 Diagnosing Invisible Agents: Between the Microbiological and the Geographic 95

5 Infiltrate the Crowd with an Idea! Colonial Educational Cinema and the Threat of Imitative Contagion 125

6 Humanitarian Visions and Colonial Imperatives: Felix-Louis Regnault, Albert Kahn, and Henri Bergson as Semiophore-Men 153

Conclusion: The French Colonial Media Apparatus: Natural Man and the Dialectics of Americanization 183

Appendix Archives and Film and Media References 203.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 217-255) and index.

ISBN:

9780816646289

0816646287

9780816646296

0816646295

OCLC:

176648936

Online:

Publisher description